‘‘Very well, then. But I want to be the one to pick up my bicycle when it’s ready.’’
‘‘If that’s what you want. Maybe when we pick everything else up Monday morning, Fowler will have that for us, too.’’
She nodded.
He rubbed his neck. ‘‘I’m sorry I messed it up.’’
The tension that had gripped her only moments before eased. ‘‘It wasn’t your fault. I didn’t expect you to go so far down the hill.’’
‘‘I did purty good, then?’’
‘‘You did outstanding.’’
‘‘Why, thank you, ma’am.’’ Winking, he pinched her chin, then continued down the sidewalk. ‘‘I’ll swing by here first thing on Monday, then,’’ he called over his shoulder.
————
An unexpected lethargy fell over Essie. She thought about her mother’s diatribe. It had a sharper edge to it than usual. She had actually verbalized what had heretofore been unspoken in their house: the word spinster. Old maid. No prospects in sight.
But she did have a prospect. And she thought of him constantly, reliving their first meeting at the Slap Out. His unexpected interest. His disillusionment over that cattle drive. His devotion to building her a rig. His bicycle ride down the hill. His kisses afterward.
Essie straightened her cuffs. Mother had certainly been wrong about the bicycle in this instance, for it was that very vehicle that had brought her and Adam together.
She wondered where he was. What he was doing. What he’d spent his wages on. Was he thinking of her as much as she was thinking of him?
The weekend dragged as she waited for Monday to arrive. On Saturday, she finished all her washing and ironing, helped Mother put up some pumpkins, and baked some bread.
She wondered what denomination Adam was, for she’d never seen him at church, and this morning was no exception. Something else for Mother to complain about once he expressed his intentions.
Without her bicycle, Essie grew listless. She could practice her wheeled feet, but she wasn’t in the mood. She could take little Harley snake hunting, but she didn’t much feel like that, either. She’d invited Papa to go fishing, but he and Mother were going to the Dunns’ for their weekly Bible study.
The house was quiet with them gone. No breeze stirred the curtains. She sat on the front porch for a while, waving to her neighbors as two by two they went here and there.
She went inside and played the piano, but even that didn’t hold her interest for long. Spying Mrs. Lockhart’s novel on the table, she thumbed through it, wondering what secrets it held—if any.
Taking it upstairs to her bedroom, she fluffed her pillow, curled up in bed and began to read Clarabel’s Love Story.
Clarabel was a tough, passionate woman jilted by a lover who was too poor to marry her. Distraught, she married the first ‘‘acceptable’’ man to ask her—a stodgy Oxford graduate. The match was so distasteful, the couple moved to separate homes only three days into the marriage.
Clarabel exhibited strength in supporting herself but never forgot her original suitor. Later, he returned a wealthy man and they engaged in an illicit affair. Love triumphed when the Oxford man died.
Essie closed the book, her mind in a whirl. The sentiments expressed in the novel were completely unacceptable in life as she knew it. But Mrs. Lockhart was a respectable, churchgoing matron. And she had knowingly given the book to Essie, suggesting, even, that Essie emulate Clarabel.
But didn’t Mrs. Lockhart find it shocking? The point of the entire novel was to raise her romantic standards by lowering her moral ones.
Perhaps Adam was right. Perhaps there really were couples who did such things. Even right here in Corsicana.
Was that why she had never married? Had her decency scared men away? She thought of the numerous weddings that had been performed this summer. Had those brides given themselves to their men before the vows were spoken?
She placed the book on the bedside table and lay back on her bed, watching the light and shadows of twilight fight for dominance on her ceiling.
The darkness eventually won.
chapter TWELVE
ONCE ADAM AND JEREMY started drilling, Essie’s presence at the field was superfluous. She could take lunch out to them each day, but she didn’t want Adam to think she was ‘‘chasing’’ him. So she only took lunches out on Fridays.
This Friday was no exception. She dressed casually, but carefully, in a new bicycle dress she’d made. The dark Turkish trousers fell below her knees and were so full that when standing they appeared to be a skirt.
She buttoned a matching double-breasted jacket over her vest, collar, and tie to accommodate the cooler weather that had begun to settle in. Holding her tongue between her teeth, she pinned on a modest, fur-trimmed hat with two shortened peacock feathers the color of Adam’s eyes, then checked herself in the mirror.
Fashionable but not overly done. The quintessential modern woman.
She skipped down the stairs, running her finger along the banister and bumping it against a series of old nails sticking out every few inches. As a youth she’d slid down the banister more times than she could count. One time she fell off halfway down and sliced open her chin.
Mother made Papa drive nails into the railing, leaving about an inch of each nail sticking up. The family had become so accustomed to them, they didn’t even notice them anymore. She really ought to have Papa remove them.
In the kitchen, Essie took some boiled eggs from the icebox, along with three jars of tea, and nestled them in a basket with frog legs, cheese, potato croquettes, pickled okra, and fig tarts—all made by her own hand.
After securing the basket to her bicycle, she headed to Twelfth Street. It had been two weeks since Peg’s repair. Plenty of time for Essie to get used to the new clicking noise Peg made with each rotation of the wheels.
But she simply couldn’t keep the sound from registering. Instead of causing concern, however, the noise reminded her of Adam and the passionate kisses they’d shared. Neither she nor Peg would ever be the same again.
She glanced up at the sky. Clouds bunched together like suds in a washtub, obliterating the sun’s rays and graying the town. On main thoroughfares, she had some protection from the wind. But once she left the shelter of the buildings, the blustery weather threatened to tip her and Peg over.
She tucked her chin and squeezed the handlebars, fighting the wind at every turn. It battered her hat, whipping against the brim and straining her hair where it was pinned, but she didn’t dare let loose of the bike. Fat raindrops began to plop from the sky as she reached the field.
Adam saw her coming, left the rig and jogged to her. ‘‘Better slide off yer saddle, girl, before them clouds open up.’’
She relinquished the bicycle to him and they ran for cover, slipping beneath the thickly clustered, arching branches of an old magnolia that formed a leafy cupola clear to the ground.
He hastily propped Peg against the tree’s trunk, grabbed Essie around the waist and pulled her flush against him. ‘‘Quick, before the boy comes.’’
He captured her lips with his and gave her a hurried but thorough kiss. ‘‘By gum, I’ve missed you,’’ he said, then released her as Jeremy approached.
‘‘Hey, there, Miss Essie,’’ Jeremy said, bending down into their shadowed haven. Earthy smells rose from the dormant soil they’d disrupted with their presence. A gentle tapping of rain began to sprinkle the leaves sheltering them.
Still trying to recover her composure, the best she could do was nod a greeting.
Jeremy zeroed in on the basket secured to her bike. ‘‘You bring us some lunch?’’
She stared back at him, totally devoid of words.
A slow, delicious smile crept over Adam’s face. ‘‘Don’t be teasin’ us, now, Miss Essie. That boy there’s a mite narrow around the equator and I’m so hungry I could eat a sow and nine pigs.’’
She blinked. ‘‘What? Oh. Of course. Help yourself
.’’
Jeremy began to loosen the rope binding the basket to her bike, his back to them. Adam took a leisurely surveillance of her, from her skewed hat to her bicycle boots and back up again, not bothering to disguise his interest.
She flushed hot, then cold, trying to think what Clarabel would do. And in the next moment found herself examining him with the same boldness he’d used with her.
He’d been still before, but she detected a subtle tensing of his muscles as she pored over him. Cowboy hat. Lifted brows. Wide lips. Shadowed jaw. Extensive shoulders. Molded chest. Silver buckle. Cocked hip. Massive thighs. Cowboy boots.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Jeremy releasing the final knot on the basket, so she swept her gaze up to Adam’s and forgot to breathe. She’d never seen such heat, such desire, such impatience in a man’s eyes.
It filled her with a surge of power. And the upper hand shifted from him to her. She knew it. He knew it. And it released in her something she hadn’t known she possessed.
Wickedness? she thought. Perhaps.
‘‘I have something sweet for you today,’’ she said.
Adam’s lips parted.
Jeremy turned around. ‘‘You always bring somethin’ sweet, Miss Essie.’’
She held Adam’s gaze. ‘‘So I do. So I do.’’
Adam swallowed.
Essie took the basket from Jeremy. ‘‘Shall we sit?’’
Jeremy plopped down.
Adam jumped forward and grabbed her elbow. ‘‘You’ll get your skirt dirty.’’
‘‘It’s all right,’’ she said.
‘‘If I had a jacket, I’d lay it out for ya.’’
She breathed in the smell of him, part sweat, part salt, part shaving tonic. ‘‘I know.’’
He increased the pressure on her elbow for a mere second before helping her settle on the ground. Gone was the teasing banter that came so easily to him, replaced with an intensity that she knew she’d caused.
Her mother was wrong. She wasn’t undesirable. She may be thirty and she may ride a bike, but she’d caught the attention of not just a man, but a gorgeous man. A man who could have his pick of any woman he wanted.
‘‘Oh, lookit this,’’ Jeremy said. ‘‘Frog legs. My favorite.’’
Essie spread a small, square cloth over her skirt. ‘‘I didn’t realize you favored them. You should have told me sooner.’’
Jeremy took a big bite. ‘‘Hmmmm. Where’d you catch ’em?’’
‘‘Not far from where we let Colonel loose.’’
Adam paused. ‘‘You caught the frogs?’’
‘‘Of course,’’ she said, unscrewing the jar of pickled okra and popping a piece into her mouth. ‘‘I’m not as good at catching them as Jeremy is, though.’’
‘‘You do all right, Miss Essie,’’ Jeremy responded.
A gust of wind broke through their barrier, lifting the cloth on Essie’s lap. Adam clapped a hand on her leg to keep the napkin from blowing away.
He surreptitiously caressed her through her skirts. ‘‘Careful, girl. You’re fixin’ to lose somethin’.’’
She glanced at Jeremy, then lifted her cloth, dabbing the corners of her mouth. ‘‘I’ll be careful.’’
Adam smiled. ‘‘Where’d you learn to catch frogs?’’
‘‘At my grandpa’s farm. He has a place out near Quitman. I used to go there every summer.’’
‘‘By yourself?’’
‘‘Well, Mother would take me, but she never stayed the way I did. First day of summer, she’d wake me up early in the morning and we’d take the train. Then Grandpa would pick us up in a carriage pulled by two palomino horses.’’
‘‘I never rode in a train,’’ Jeremy said.
‘‘Where would you go if you could?’’ Essie asked.
He put a chunk of cheese in his mouth. ‘‘Don’t really know,’’ he said around his mouthful.
‘‘What did you do up there all summer?’’ Adam asked her.
‘‘Lots of things. Grandpa’s syrup mill was my favorite, though. The horse would walk in circles all day turning the mill, pressing sweet juice out of the sugarcane. Sometimes I’d help pour the juice into big vats where they slowly cooked it, and this wonderful aroma bubbled up from it.’’
‘‘You ever get to have any o’ that syrup?’’ Jeremy asked.
‘‘Yes. They’d pour it into jugs or tin buckets, and at the house I’d get to eat ribbon cane syrup on Grandma’s hot, buttered biscuits.’’
Rain started to leak into their haven, causing the three of them to scoot closer to the trunk of the tree.
‘‘My grandpa ain’t nothin’ like that. He don’t do nothin’ but drink the day away.’’
Essie had known Jeremy since he was a tiny baby, and this was the first time she’d ever heard him so much as mention his grandfather—Corsicana’s town drunk.
‘‘You have a grandpa, Adam?’’ he asked.
‘‘Shore do.’’
‘‘He drink?’’
‘‘Shore does.’’
Jeremy took a gulp of tea from his glass jar. ‘‘Is he a drunk?’’
Adam dug around in the basket for a boiled egg as if Jeremy had asked him nothing more than if the sky was blue. ‘‘Nope. He likes to look at the moon through the neck of a bottle, but he knows his limits. Best cowboy that’s ever lived.’’
‘‘He the one what taught you ropin’?’’
‘‘Him and my pa.’’
‘‘You ever seen Adam rope?’’ Jeremy asked Essie.
‘‘No, I haven’t.’’
‘‘You gotta show her, Adam. Miss Essie’d be impressed. ’Course, she’d want you to teach her how, though.’’
Adam glanced over at her. ‘‘I’ll teach her. I got a whole passel o’ tricks I could show her.’’
He took a bite out of his egg, and Essie looked down. The advantage had somehow shifted back to him.
The rain stopped, but a few gusts of wind rustled the big, glossy leaves around them, loosing random droplets of water. They finished their meal, leaving not so much as a crumb behind.
‘‘That sure was good, Miss Essie,’’ Jeremy said.
‘‘Thank you.’’
She took a sip of tea, then reached for the lid, but Adam snagged the jar from her, turned it to the exact spot she’d touched with her lips and drank deeply, finishing all that was left.
‘‘That was mighty sweet,’’ he said, handing the jar back to her and scraping his mouth with his sleeve.
A crack of thunder reverberated above them.
‘‘You may as well head on out, Jeremy,’’ Adam said. ‘‘As long as the Old Man up there is stompin’ on his campfire and sending sparks a-flyin’, we ain’t got no business under that tripod o’ poles.’’
Jeremy’s eyes lit up. ‘‘You sure?’’
‘‘I’m shore, but when the lightning stops, you come on back.’’
‘‘I will.’’ He hesitated. ‘‘What about Miss Essie?’’
‘‘I’ll stay here with her until everything settles down.’’
‘‘That okay with you, Miss Essie?’’
She schooled her expression to show none of the commotion going on inside her. ‘‘Of course. I’ll be fine.’’
Jeremy stood and brushed the backside of his waist-overalls. ‘‘Well, thanks again, Miss Essie, and I’ll see ya later today, Adam.’’
He ducked out into the field, and she listened to his rapid footfalls splashing through the puddles until they were no more.
Adam said nothing, just looked at her. The tension inside her built. She thought of how bold she’d been earlier and felt herself blush. What in the world had she been thinking?
He picked up a corner of her skirt and gave it a gentle tug. ‘‘Come here.’’
And so she had her choice. She could take her bicycle and leave or she could scoot over next to Adam and learn some new and unsearchable things. Things she might never have another chance to experience if she didn?
??t seize this opportunity.
Stiff. Stern. Old maid. Spinster.
That’s what she was and what she would continue to be unless she secured this man’s interest. And if that meant allowing him to steal a kiss or two, so be it. In fact, she found the idea more than a little thrilling.
She shuffled over on her knees. As soon as she was within reach, he caught her to him and brought them both to the ground.
‘‘I was so afraid you were gonna say no,’’ he said, then covered her lips with his.
Her hat forced her head into an uncomfortable angle. His belt buckle dug into her. Her shoulder landed in a small puddle. None of it mattered.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back with everything she had. He held her tight, one hand between her shoulder blades, the other at the small of her back.
An explosion of thunder from far away slowly faded like a music box that winds down. A moment of silence as the earth stilled in anticipation of once again being quenched of its thirst. A gradual tapping of water on the leaves above and the ground outside increased in sound and speed, culminating in a waterfall from heaven. So much.
So fast. The soil could not absorb it all at once.
‘‘Your hair,’’ he said. ‘‘Can I see your hair?’’
Wrenching the pin from her hat, she flung them both to the side and sat up. She tugged at her pins until her hair fell down her back, then ran her fingers through it, savoring the freedom of having it loose.
He sat up and cradled her face with his hands, his eyes smoldering. ‘‘You are beautiful.’’
He kissed her again with an exquisite gentleness that undid her more than the earlier impatience. He tasted every inch of bare skin he could. And when he’d finished with her face and neck and hands and fingers, when he’d finished smelling and stroking and worshiping her hair, he placed her hand over the buttons of her double-breasted jacket and left it there.
If she removed it, her modesty would still be intact, with her vest and shirtwaist remaining. She slowly undid the buttons. He pushed the jacket off her shoulders and down her arms. Then waited.
She unhooked her vest.